terrier dog. There is no difficulty in producing or keeping up such a mixture ; hut
there is no practical object in perpetuating it. To what extent the blood of the jackal
was originally mingled with dogs, and how far it has influenced our present types, cannot
now be determined, although we should imagine that the trace is lost.
“ It seems rarely to happen that the mule offspring is truly intermediate in charac-
** ter between the two parents. Thus, Hunter mentions that, in his experiments^ one
of the hybrid pups resembled the wolf much more than the rest of the litter ; and we
are informed by Wiegamann, that of a litter lately obtained at the Royal Menagerie at
Berlin, from a white pointer and a she-wolf, two of the cubs resembled the common
wolf-dog ; but the other was like a pointer, with hanging ears.” «8
Facts enough, and authorities enough have already been given, to
prove, we think, to any unprejudiced mind, a plurality of origin for
the numerous canine species, whose blood has become mingled in our
domestic dogs. If this point he conceded by scientific men—to whom
alone we appeal — an Immense stride is at once made in the Hatural
History of Humanity; because, zoologically speaking* mankind and
canidce occupy precisely the same position. Grant that different species
may produce offspring prolific inter se, and the dogma of the
unity of human families can no longer be sustained, either by facts,
or by analogies derivable from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Science, we are persuaded, will grant this truth ere long.
MO N UME N T A L H I S T O R Y OF DOGS. '
Whatever doubts may still linger in the reader’s mind as to the
diversity of canine species, we feel confident that they must give way
before the new facts we are now about to present. Like the races of
men, many races of dogs can he traced hack, in their present forms,
on the monuments of Egypt, from 4000 to 6000 years anterior to our
day ; and, inasmuch as there is no evidence that dogs did really all
proceed from one stock, or that their different types, such as greyhounds,
mastiffs, turnspits, &c., can he transformed into each other
by physical causes; and, again, considering that all these canine
types .did preserve, side by side in Egypt, their respective forms for
thousands of years, these animals must be regarded, by every naturalist,'
as specifically distinct.
Substantiating our doctrine with reduced fac-similes of these monumental
dogs, we shall thereby enable the reader to form his own
conclusions.
H i e r o g l y p h i c for “ D o g ”— (Qanis Lupaster?).
The dog was one of the figurative and symbolic forms used by the primordial Egyptians
in their hieroglyphic ■writings ; and may he traced on the inscriptions of the
monuments from the earliest to the latest. Two forms were used, whioh seem to have
been taken from very distinct races ; and these, again, were totally unlike the beautiful
grey-hound which is often seen upon contemporary monuments.«?
Hieroglyphic writing had attained its full perfection at the IVth dynasty, and we
possess abundant legends of the thirty-fifth century b. c. ; but the invention of writing,
as every hierologist declares, must inevitably antedate these monuments by many centuries
; ascending certainly to the time of Menes, b. c.
3898; and, pictorially, to ages anterior. The pure hiero- Fig. 235.
glyphics represent things in their appropriate shapes and
colors; which things are all indigenous in Egypt, to the
exclusion of any element foreign to the Nile. Among
them is this hieroglyphic (Fig. 235) for “ dog,” which, like
every other primitive sign, continued to mean “ dog,” down
to the extinction of hieroglyphical writing, about the fifth
century after c. Thus, one species of the common dog, at
least, existed in Egypt 1500 years before Usher’s deluge;
to say nothing of the Archbishop’s fabulous era for the world’s creation.
This (Fig. 235) is called B,fox-dog\)j Dr. Morton; not to be confounded, however, with
the “ fox-hound” of English kennels. It is found in the catacombs embalmed in great
numbers through various parts of the country; and appears to have been “ the parent
stock of the modern red wild” (Or Pariah) 1 ‘ dog common at Cairo and other towns in
Lower Egypt.” These dogs, Clot Bey observes,
lead a nomadic life, and are invariably
without individual masters. They
are also found, semi-wild, on the confines
of the desert. An interesting account of
these Nilotic canidae may be consulted in
Martin’s History of the Dog — and he properly
regards them as a distinct species,
that, we may add, has come down unaltered
from immemorial time.
A similar — we dare not say the same .
species prevails throughout Barbary; and
the Levant, from Greece and European
Turkey, through Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine,
Fig. 236.
Assyria, Persia, into Hindostán. They belong to civic communities, rather than
to any particular person. If taken young into domestic keeping, when adult they instinctively
abandon the house; and, if grateful for kindnesses,' they will obey no
master; but hang around the localities of their birth, neither enticeable into familiarity,
nor expulsable from the precincts of their earliest associations. They are the scavenger's
of oriental cities; and Muslim charity, whilst shuddering at the unclean touch of
a dog’s nose, recognizes their utility, and protects them by municipal laws as well as
by alimentary legacies. If love for their human acquaintances be not vociferous, their
hatred to strangers is intensely so : and it is in the attitude of annoying intruders that
the annexed wild dog of Persia (Fig. 236) is represented.
Dr. Pickering, in the letter from Egypt to Morton before cited [supra, p. 245], after
viewing these semi-wild dogs with the critical eye of a naturalist, aptly remarks: —
“ By the way, the dogs here 1 find all of one breed,—the same, if my memory serve me,
with a mummied skull presented by Mr. Gliddon [1840] to the National Institute at
Washington:—with upright ears, and very much of a jackal, or small wolf, in appearance,.^
often, even in color. They bark, however, as I can well attest, like other
dogs; — and if this be, as alleged by some, a matter of education, there seems to be
here no danger of the loss of the art.”
The Grrey-hound
Is a very common animal throughout all Eastern nations, and presents great divergencies
of external form. Several varieties, probably three, are seen on the monuments of